A touching love story without a cynical bone in its
body.
It is directed
by Zhang Yimou (Red Sorghum /Raise the Red
Lantern/Not One Less).
"The
Road Home" shows that love and humanity can overcome
the drabness
of life. But the film also comes with a stealth
political message, that
is not fully touched upon but plays a lurking part in
the story.

This lyrical work, a model in simplicity and charm,
is set
in the
mountainous region of rural northern China and filmed
in a drab
black-and-white
monochrome for the present and in a glorious color
tone when looking
back
at the Cultural Revolution of the late 1950s -- that
part was
especially
attuned to the astonishing colors of the changing
seasons. The winter
blizzards
and snow-covered fields have a stunning white and
bluish look to them,
making the village seem like a fairy tale one.

An obedient only son, Luo Yusheng (Honglei), of a
well-liked village
school teacher, leaves the big city to attend his
father's funeral in
the
rural mountain area of Sanheutun. The son is in his
thirties, is a
successful
businessman, and is unmarried. His elderly mother,
Zhang Di (Yuelin),
requests
a traditional funeral for the husband she still loves
with all her
heart
after forty married years. This custom calls for
carrying his coffin by
hand on foot all the way from the bottom of the hill
where he died in
the
hospital, to the top of the hill in the village where
the remaining
elderly
residents live to the old school house. The father
will be buried by
the
old well, which brings back fond memories to his
mother of how they
first
met.

In this traditional ceremony, those walking with the
body
shout out
for the deceased not to fear "This is the road home."
This clearly
becomes
the political message sent, as one looks past this
love story as the
director
is telling us that China must not forget its past
truths -- that is the
"road home."

The problem with carrying out the traditional
funeral and
not using
a car or a tractor for transportation is that there's
not enough
manpower,
as most of the young have left the village for the
cities.

It's through the flashback and voiceover provided by
Yusheng that
we witness the love that inspired his parents, and why
he must honor
his
stubborn mother's request. The son recalls what his
mother told him
about
how she met his father -- how his pretty mother, when
she was an
18-year-old
(Zhang Ziyi), living with her nearly blind widowed
mother (Li Bin), had
conspired to meet the kindly handsome 20-year-old new
teacher, Changyu,
(Zheng Hao), who just arrives from the city of East
Gate.

The peasant Di fell in love at first sight with the
teacher
who was
of a higher class than she was. He noticed her among
the villagers who
was there to greet his arrival because of her bright
red jacket. This
is
a time of arranged marriages, and the sole opportunity
she gets to see
the teacher is when the school is being built and the
women bring
lunches
to the workers and the women gather around the well.
Di volunteers to
weave
the lucky red banner that is hung from the rafters of
the new building,
as she knows the teacher will think of her whenever he
sees it hanging.
She aims to avoid an arranged marriage and instead
marry for love.

When the teacher dines in a different village house
every
day and
it's his turn to go to Di's house, she can't hold back
her tender
feelings
and he responds by giving her a hairpin to match her
red jacket. This
token
of love is treated as a precious icon, something she
dare not lose.

The novel ways to meet him that she cooks up paves
the way
for their
chaste courtship to continue.

When the teacher is called back to the city by his
bosses
for some
political reasons (Mao's re-education plan!), he fails
to come back
when
he promised. The anguished Di waits for him by the
road in the snow
storm
and when he fails to appear tries to go to the city to
meet him, but
faints
before she can leave the road (the same cherished road
where the
funeral
procession takes place and where she always stands to
get a glimpse of
him). When the teacher hears of this, he sneaks back
to see her and
starts
teaching again. But his superiors reprimand him for
this infraction and
keep him away from the school for two years. But when
he returns, this
time for good, he never leaves Di again.

These are simple people who live in accord with
nature and
their
traditional customs and their cherished values. They
respect humanity
above
all, even over what the modern conveniences can offer
them, and this
film
is a reminder to modern China to beware of what it is
throwing out in
favor
of its new materialistic society. It's a call back to
the past film,
much
like some in America tried to look back at nature in
the 1960s and
headed
for the hills to live a simple life. For Zhang Yimou,
if you remain
grounded
in your traditions and beliefs, no one can take away
your integrity and
the truth you stand for. If the father left the city
to be in the
country
and the son takes the reverse path, they must still
live according to
their
nature. For Yimou nature is the great equalizer no one
can overcome
(the
father's death is attributed to a blizzard), and the
good old days of
political
persecutions are seemingly for him the moments of
truth that shake up
those
who can't live as one in the community because they
forget what their
true
nature is.

In this unassuming story, it becomes clear that the
message
is how
out of touch the political bosses can become with the
ordinary people
who
just want to live their lives in harmony with nature.
It's a thoroughly
humanistic film, whose political comments are swept
into the pristine
nature
of the countryside and seem naive if thought out to
the full extent. A
film that shows people who live in oppressed countries
have a greater
appreciation
for the little freedoms in life than those in the
industrial western
countries
who maybe too easily take for granted their freedom
(much like Abbas
Kiarostami
says in his Iranian films, but he is more spiritual
than political in
his
arguments).

Zhang Ziyi(star
of Crouching
Tiger, Hidden Dragon)
gives
a radiant performance and Sun Honglei a pleasing
one, which makes
this sentimental tearjerker have a true heart even
if it's a bit
overblown
and manipulative. Though I can't buy the political
message (except for
the pokes at the bureaucrats), I thoroughly bought
into the timeless
love
story and the masterly way it was directed. It's a
film without much
punch,
but its old-fashioned love story never goes out of
favor.